Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a shutter mechanism for an electrode pad attached card, and a contact in which a contacting relation and a contact released relation between an electrode pad attached card having an IC, etc., and a contact are controlled by a slider which is reciprocally moved forwardly and backwardly in accordance with insertion and withdrawal of the card.
As shown in FIGS. 7A-7B, a typical prior art arrangement is designed such that an electrode pad attached card (memory card) containing therein an IC is inserted into a receiving slit of an electronic instrument such as a personal computer, word processor or the like, and the contact 4 is contacted with the electrode pad 3 provided on an upper surface of the card, so that the IC contained in the card is electrically connected to a data processing circuit within the electronic instrument in order to give data contained in the IC of the card to the data processing circuit within the electronic instrument or record the data contained in the data processing circuit within the electronic instrument on the card.
As means for controlling a contacting relation and a contact released relation between the electrode pad 3 of the card and the contact 4, the conventional arrangement includes a slider 5 which can reciprocally move forwardly and backwardly in accordance with insertion and withdrawal of the card. The slider is formed with a contact guide groove 10 having a bottom, extending in a direction of the reciprocal movement of the slider 5 and adapted to guide the contacting projection 7 of the contact. During the reciprocal movement of the slider 5, the contacting projection 7 of the contact 4 is in resilient contact with a bottom surface of the contact guide groove 10, so that a contact released relation with the card is established. At the end of the forward movement of the slider 5, the contacting projection 7 is resiliently restored to project through a through-hole 13 formed in one end portion of the guide groove 10, so that the contacting projection 7 is contacted under pressure with the electrode pad 3 of the card.
The slider is helpful in reducing sliding movement, under pressure, of the contacting projection of the contact with respect to the surface of the card surface or electrode pad surface as much as possible. Owing to this arrangement, damage to the electrode pad or the IC contained in the card due to repeated insertion and withdrawal of the card can effectively be prevented.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional shutter mechanism for a contact, since the contacting projection of the contact is resiliently contacted with the guide groove bottom surface of the slider and the slider is repeatedly reciprocally moved forwardly and backwardly in that resiliently contacted condition, a plating applied to the contacting projection is liable to wear quickly and as a result, reliability of the contacting relationship between the electrode pad 3 and the contact 4 is degraded.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of the above problems.